Fiona Dunne, who has hosted a Ukrainian woman and her daughters in Co Laois for almost four years, feels “completely let down” by the Government.
Her guest, Anna Polyshchuk, feels “abandoned” with supports for members of her community, including the monthly €400 Accommodation Recognition Payment (ARP) to hosts like Dunne, being wound down.
Introduced in July 2022, just months after Russia invaded Ukraine, the ARP was initially paid at a monthly rate of €800. This was reduced to €600 in June 2025 and to €400 last month. The payment is due to be terminated next March.
There were 16,300 people hosting 38,300 Ukrainian beneficiaries of temporary protection as of October 11th, according to the Department of Justice.
Polyshchuk arrived in Ireland via Moldova, Poland and Germany on March 31st, 2022, having reluctantly left Ukraine with her mother (now 72) and daughters (now 13 and 19). They initially stayed in Citywest, Dublin before being moved to a hotel in Abbeyleix.
“It was very difficult all living in just one room, especially for my mother, but we were safe and very grateful. My children started in school,” she says.
Polyshchuk got work as a kitchen porter in the hotel. “I was looking all the time for a house to rent, but couldn’t find any house. I abandoned the search.
“Some local people knew my situation and they looked for a house too. One day in November, I came home and there was message on my phone. It was Fiona. ‘I know you are looking for a house. I think I can help you.’ I couldn’t believe my eyes. Fiona was a miracle.”
A neighbour, whose mother was involved in the local effort to welcome Ukrainians fleeing the war, asked Dunne if she would host a family. She was contacted by the Irish Red Cross (IRC), which co-ordinates pledges of accommodation for Ukrainians, and added her name to its list.
“I was apprehensive to be honest. I didn’t want any long-term tenants. I thought Anna would find another house to rent quickly enough,” adds Dunne, who is “semi-retired” and tends to “come and go a bit”.
Dunne’s home has a self-contained section with its own kitchen, bathroom and bedrooms, which represented a big “improvement” for Polyshchuk and her family after living in a hotel. It also meant they could remain in a community to which they had developed links.
“[The children] could stay in the schools and I can keep my job,” she says.
Unable to use her master’s degree in linguistics, Polyshchuk now has an entry-level administration job with an energy company in Portlaoise.
Dunne receives the ARP directly, describing it as “useful”, while Polyshchuk pays her family’s share of bills and towards the upkeep of the house.
The women have become close friends but had not anticipated sharing a home for four years.
“I never expected the war to be so long,” says Polyshchuk.
After a year in Dunne’s home, she began looking for accommodation for her family.
“I am 50 now. I was looking for a mortgage but at my age and salary and the only person working in the family, I cannot get enough to buy anything,” she says.
“I am not eligible for social housing or any housing support because of my status. The rents are very high and there is nothing to rent in Abbeyleix, completely nothing.
“In Portlaoise, we looked online, there are only five houses to rent. And surrounding [the town] there are 11. The prices are high and also the landlords wouldn’t consider me. They don’t want to accommodate someone without a renting history. To be honest I am lost.”
In the coming months Dunne will need the space in her home back for her own family. Polyshchuk fears for her children’s safety if they were to return to their home city Odesa.
“I am concerned. The war in Ukraine is getting only worse.”
Dunne feels a responsibility to Polyshchuk and her children, but cannot continue housing them.
“I feel we have been left on our own. You step up, you do something good. Hosting has been [a] very good model for integration,” she says.
“And integration is the key. If immigrants can’t integrate, it just becomes a lightning rod for anti-immigration sentiment.
“Government policy now is sabotaging integration.”
Asked what she will do, Polyshchuk says: “I do not have a solution. The temporary protection status is extended to 2028 because the war is still going on.
“If we have the permission to stay but we do not have possibility to rent or to have accommodation ... we are abandoned.
“Almost all Ukrainian people in subsidised accommodation, they are women with kids.”
A spokeswoman for the IRC said it would like to see the ARP scheme “remaining in place for as long as the temporary protection directive” continues.
“The ending of the ARP is likely to lead to a significant reduction in the number of pledges of accommodation received by the Irish Red Cross.”
A Department of Justice spokesman said hosts “can continue to have private arrangements with individuals” following the termination of the ARP scheme.
“People in receipt of temporary protection can also avail of private rented accommodation either through their own means or with the assistance of rent supplement, a means-tested payment administered by the Department of Social Protection,” they said.